Those interested in offering rides specify their gender, asking price and how many passengers they can accommodate. Potential passengers contact the driver directly.

Selim Reid, a 24-year-old from Norderstedt, city of about 70,000 near Hamburg, told the Hamburger Abendblatt newspaper that he was inspired to create the site because of Muslims’ bad ride-sharing experiences.

In 1996, for instance, his parents, who are originally from Iraq, caught a ride with a Muslim-hating driver who spent the whole time criticizing them.

“The driver and the people with him swore the whole way about foreigners in general and in particular about my mother’s head scarf,” Reid told the newspaper.

Of course, you don't need to be a Muslim to use Reid’s service. In fact, he told the Abendblatt, that’s one of the main points of Muslim Taxi.

“Those really looking for dialogue will find it by using Muslim Taxi,” he said.

In operation since late last year, the website has attracted its share of criticism. People have accused Reid of trying to create a parallel society and supporting immigrants who don’t want to integrate in German culture.

But Reid says the response from thousands of grateful riders has showed him he’s filling a niche.

“Many Muslim brothers and sisters complained that they can’t use conventional offers because the gender segregation stipulated by Islam is not implemented,” he added.

Your comments about this article

And here we have an article with the record number of coments in the weeks to come. Let me be first to say:

Why not??? There are already plenty of businesses which are orientated towards special needs of different cultural and religious groups. For one Dönner is done with Halal meet, and all enjoy it equally well. If you like it you can take it, if not leave it alone.

A little free enterprise here at work. It does demonstrate the cultural and religious differences however between the host country and it's guest workers.

Lets see how long this potential bomb is allowed to run by the open mined staff of the Local, hopefully they will take the time and check out the LA Times, Washington Post and NY Times to see how their comment sections are conducted.

Wow. I'm waiting for the storm in a beermug to rage all over The Local... until the comments section gets closed as it ALWAYS does in these type of articles (where are the comments on the record-breaking number of asylum applications??)

Is Germany falling apart because a shrewd businessman is filling a niche market? I don't think so, but I guess most people will say the opposite.

Next story in the Local: "muslim-WG.de offers gender-segregated accommodation", as if this was something new under the sun.

Good for him. He saw a need. Provides services for that need. And makes money providing those services. Brilliant. Capitalism at it's finest. And he clearly stated that one does not have to be a Muslim to use his service. I'd say that falls under the banner of nondiscrimination. I for one hope he does very well for himself.

I doubt that either the Germans or the Islamic people are to interested in integration,it never failed because it does not truly exist and unless the Christian faith embraces the Muslim faith and vise versa it never will. Despite all the rhetoric from the news and Gov and all the money they throw at it remains an enigma.

@ Asgarli: Typical comment - where did he say that the driver was German? He talked about a "muslim hating driver". As far as I know there are also Russian, Polish, Spanish and so on taxi drivers in Germany.

many likes to be enslaved and be gratified for being a slave to the religion. People needs to learn to use religion as just another tool to bring comfort to humans not these kind of .... (how to call it?)

@LecteurX: Thanks for giving me the idea with muslimwg. You know what I will create it and you know why: I'm a German citizen with Muslim name and religion. In past three months I have been searching a a shared room because of my studies in a different German city. Guess what 90% didn't bother to give me an appointment and gave same damn replied, "es ist vergeben". I call this systematic discrimination. Since everyone in this country is not labor class or stupid the way you love to call your imported slave workers, people should come on front line and take practical steps against this potential Islamophobia against the German Muslims living in Vaterland.

@raandy : Does your comment changes, If i tell you, where i come from or Does the origin of person has any reflection upon your comment?

Anyway, I totally disagree with your comment "Religion is the root of all evil". Instead, religion is a way of life & how you live in society. Now, it depend upon the person, how you look at religion !!!

The basic Concept of any religion is to live a good life and be a good human and it teaches you all good ways.

At the end, it again, hypocratic people who tend to lead the religion without any basic understanding. As we can see some comment frm above :-|

Everyone's free choice to ride with me. As long as they are Atheists only. I will check out their religion before I will let them enter my car. A quick test will do.

I do not have to eat halal-helal-kosher-beefless food, and the Muhammedans are not forced to eat currywurst. Islamophobia in our Western countries, Infidelphobia in their Muslim countries. I don't really care because I do not live in a Muhammedan country, and I do not want to either.

Gender segregation is Discrimination and in this case supports treating women as not egual to men. Creating muslim taxi is Prejudice. Now we hear the stupid story about how this muslim family took a taxi ride and were discriminated against. Well imagine one European sitting in a taxi full of muslims.They would not say a word to him. This is not integration. If this man did not want to be racist he would not have told this stupid story. Purley hipocritical!

Is there no law in Germany which forbids these kind of segregation, unequal treatment of men and women in the name of religion or whatever.

I think there are enough laws which Muslims can turn to if they feel discriminated rather than creating another level of discrimination in the name of religion or culture they decided to throw in to the bin before coming to Europe.

Was he saying that his Muslim brothers and sisters didn't know the way Europeans travel before landing in this continent. He should think again whether its right to come to a country and try to change its way. Will his so called brothers and sisters allow a European go to Iraq and try to live European way. lets say kiss in public :)

This is sexual aphartheit, nothing to do with culture and tradition, and should not be allowed by law in Europe, I am from Iraq and my parents were muslims, but we from the middle east know about the cruelty of Islamic laws, and that is why most of us left our country.

Again, people: being a private business, nobody forces you to take part in it. If I wanna sell burgers but only sell them to, say, people more than 1,87m, shouldn't that be my problem? It is by any means not the only segregationist business model.

Part of me wants to say... way to go, good for you for creating a little business that fits a niche - yet has it open to everyone. But then the glaringly obvious hits you in the face. It isn't open to everyone. It is a business based on segregating the sexes which is based on a religion that segregates itself from people of other religions and backgrounds. I see no place for these types of business in Europe, and specifically in Germany. Why should we become more like their religious based lives rather than people who choose to come (or whose parents chose to come) to another land with other customs learning to live within those customs - in this case FREEDOM. No one forces anyone to share a ride with anyone in the first model, but this new business absolutely prevents certain classes of people from riding with other classes of people (namely gender). I do not support this idea. I also do not support the idea of furthering the assumption that one group's religious bias and bigotry should be supported.

I'm torn on this one. The guy is just accommodating to a potential business niche but it does perpetuate segregation. That is never a good thing.

I too believe religion to be fundamentally wrong and only increases the "them and us" syndrome. Each religion believes they are right and others are wrong. This leads to a feeling of superiority as that religion is made up of the chosen people. The world would be far better off without religion as this would remove an option for people to judge. Of course many people are just morons and will always find a different way to express their misguided hate.

Many crimes are committed in the name of religion so let's wise up and put the fairy tales of our ancestors behind us.....

We need to have separate dining facilities where they serve no Schweinefleisch and have dogs under the table.We need separate toilets for Moslems and Infidels for several reasons. Marriages to Infidels must be stopped at all costs. There will be more soon !

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